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Offer your employees a "value exchange" instead of a job, and you’ll be well on your way to creating a loyal, engaged and thriving workplace.

So says Gina Lednyak, managing director of Lednyak Social, who believes organisations are most successful when they “stop thinking about a workplace as a workplace”.

“People are lot more productive when they’re happy, so my goal is always to create a place for people to work where they can also fulfill their own goals and use their creativity,” said Lednyak, who oversees offices in Sydney and New York.

“We do things like lunch time mediations, learning sessions to teach each other interesting things, and we might even take a break at 2pm to get ice-cream. But at 8pm that night and over the weekend, my staff will still be checking their emails and liaising with clients.”

Ledynak’s philosophy is backed by Mercer’s latest Australian Benefits Review (ABR), which found that organisations with very effective employee benefit plans have a lower employee turnover rate of 12%, compared to the general market at 15%.

Their employees also generally log more hours, particularly senior management, where 43% typically worked more than 50 hours a week, compared to 25% across the market.

Innovative incentives could include allowing employees to finish earlier on a Friday during summer, incentives for car-pooling, and ‘Doona Days’ (an extra day off for personal replenishment), said Garry Adams, leader of Mercer’s Talent business for the Pacific.

“In the past, you didn’t think about happiness and you definitely didn’t think that your job could provide it, but these days people have come to expect happiness,” Lednyak added.

“There’s less separation between work and home and people have clicked to the fact that if you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work.”